The Letters of Queen Victoria Volume I Part 80

_Sir Robert Peel to Queen Victoria._

_9th September 1841._

... Sir Robert Peel will have the honour of writing to your Majesty to-morrow on the subjects adverted to in the note which he has just received from your Majesty.

He begs for the present to a.s.sure your Majesty that he shall consider every communication which your Majesty may be pleased to address to him in reference to the personal merits or disqualifications of individuals as of a most confidential character.

[Pageheading: PEEL APOLOGISES]

_Sir Robert Peel to Mr Anson._

WHITEHALL, _10th September 1841._

MY DEAR SIR,--I am sorry if I have failed to make any communication to Her Majesty respecting public matters, which Her Majesty has been in the habit of receiving, or which she would have wished to receive.

Having been occupied in the execution of the important trust committed to me not less than sixteen or eighteen hours of the twenty-four for several days past, it may be that I have made some omissions in this respect, which under other circ.u.mstances I might have avoided. I did not think Her Majesty would wish to be informed of the issue of writs, necessarily following the appointments to certain offices, of all which Her Majesty had approved. I certainly ought to have written to Her Majesty previously to the adjournment of the House of Commons until Thursday the _16th of September_. It was an inadvertent omission on my part, amid the ma.s.s of business which I have had to transact, and I have little doubt that if I had been in Parliament I should have avoided it.

The circ.u.mstances of my having vacated my seat, and of having thus been compelled to leave to others the duty of proposing the adjournment of the House, was one cause of my inadvertence.

Both the Duke of Wellington and I fully intended to make a report to Her Majesty after the close of the Parliamentary business of each day, and will do so without fail on the rea.s.sembling of Parliament.

I am, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,

ROBERT PEEL.

[Pageheading: DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENTS]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

SOUTH STREET, _10th September 1841._

... Lord Melbourne has no doubt that Sir Robert Peel has the most anxious wish to do everything that can be agreeable to your Majesty.

Your Majesty should not omit to speak fully and seriously to him upon the disposal of great appointments. Their Diplomatic Corps, from which Amba.s.sadors and Governors are generally taken, is the weakest part of their establishment. They have amongst them men of moderate abilities and of doubtful integrity, who yet have held high offices and have strong claims upon them. The public service may suffer most essentially by the employment of such men. Lord Melbourne would say to Peel that "affairs depend more upon the hands to which they are entrusted than upon any other cause, and that you hope he will well consider those whose appointment to high and important situations he sanctions, and that he will not suffer claims of connection or of support to overbalance a due regard for your Majesty's service and the welfare of the country." Such an expression of your Majesty's opinion may possibly be a support to Sir Robert Peel against pretensions which he would be otherwise unable to resist; but this is entirely submitted to your Majesty's judgment, seeing that your Majesty, from an exact knowledge of all that is pa.s.sing, must be able to form a much more correct opinion of the propriety and discretion of any step than Lord Melbourne can do....

Lord Melbourne has a letter from Lord John Russell, rather eager for active opposition; but Lord Melbourne will write to your Majesty more fully upon these subjects from Woburn.

[Pageheading: CANADA]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

WOBURN ABBEY, _12th September 1841._

Lord Melbourne has this morning received your Majesty's letter of yesterday. Lord Melbourne entirely agrees with your Majesty about appointments. He knows, as your Majesty does from experience, that with all the claims which there are to satisfy, with all the prejudices which are to be encountered, and with all the interests which require to be reconciled, it is impossible to select the best men, or even always those properly qualified. He is the last man who would wish that a Minister who has the whole machine of the Government before him should be necessarily thwarted or interfered with in the selection of those whom he may be desirous to employ. Lord Melbourne would therefore by no means advise your Majesty to throw difficulty in the way of the diplomatic arrangements which may be proposed, unless there should be in them anything manifestly and glaringly bad. The nomination of Lord ---- would have been so, but otherwise it cannot very greatly signify who is the Amba.s.sador at Vienna, or even at Petersburg or Paris. Stuart de Rothesay[94] and Strangford[95] are not good men, either of them, but it will be difficult for Lord Aberdeen to neglect their claims altogether. Heytesbury[96] is an able man, the best they have. Sir Robert Gordon[97] is an honest man, slow but not illiberal. It would be well if your Majesty showed Lord Aberdeen that you know these men, and have an opinion upon the subject of them.

Canada is another matter. It is a most difficult and most hazardous task. There has been recent rebellion in the country. A new Const.i.tution has lately been imposed upon it by Parliament. The two Provinces have been united, and the united Province is bordered by a most hostile and uncontrollable community, the United States of North America. To govern such a country at such a moment requires a man of great abilities, a man experienced and practical in the management of popular a.s.semblies.... It is possible that matters may go smoothly there, and that if difficulties do arise Sir C. Bagot may prove more equal to them than from his general knowledge of his character Lord Melbourne would judge him to be....

Upon the subject of diplomatic appointments Lord Melbourne has forgotten to make one general observation which he thinks of importance. Upon a change of Government a very great and sudden change of all or many of the Ministers at Foreign Courts is an evil and to be avoided, inasmuch as it induces an idea of a general change of policy, and disturbs everything that has been settled. George III. always set his face against and discouraged such numerous removals as tending to shake confidence abroad in the Government of England generally and to give it a character of uncertainty and instability. It would be well if your Majesty could make this remark to Lord Aberdeen.

[Footnote 94: The new Amba.s.sador to St Petersburg.]

[Footnote 95: Percy, sixth Viscount Strangford (1780-1855), formerly Amba.s.sador to Constantinople, whom Byron described as

"Hibernian Strangford, with thine eyes of blue, And boasted locks of red or auburn hue."]

[Footnote 96: See _post_, p. 329. (Ch. X, 19th September, 1841)]

[Footnote 97: The new Amba.s.sador to Vienna.]

[Pageheading: INDIA AND AFGHANISTAN]

[Pageheading: LORD ELLENBOROUGH'S REPORT]

[Pageheading: INDIAN FINANCES]

_Lord Ellenborough[98] to Queen Victoria._

Lord Ellenborough presents his most humble duty to your Majesty, and humbly acquaints your Majesty that having, on the morning after the Council held at Claremont on the third of this month, requested the clerks of the India Board to put him in possession of the latest information with respect to the Political, Military, and Financial affairs of India, he ascertained that on the 4th of June instructions had been addressed to the Governor-General of India in Council in the following terms:--"We direct that unless circ.u.mstances now unknown to us should induce you to adopt a different course, an adequate force be advanced upon Herat, and that that city and its dependencies may be occupied by our troops, and dispositions made for annexing them to the kingdom of Cabul."[99]

The last letters from Calcutta, dated the 9th of July, did not intimate any intention on the part of the Governor-General in Council of directing any hostile movement against Herat, and the Governor-General himself having always evinced much reluctance to extend the operations of the army to that city, it seemed almost probable that the execution of the orders of the 4th of June would have been suspended until further communication could be had with the Home Authorities.

Nevertheless, in a matter of so much moment it did not appear to be prudent to leave anything to probability, and at Lord Ellenborough's instance your Majesty's confidential servants came to the conclusion that no time should be lost in addressing to the Governor-General in Council a letter in the following terms--such letter being sent, as your Majesty must be aware, not directly by the Commissioners for the Affairs of India, but, as the Act of Parliament prescribes in affairs requiring secrecy, by their direction through and in the name of the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors:--

"From the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors of the East India Company to the Governor-General of India in Council.

"Her Majesty having been pleased to form a new Administration, we think it expedient that no step should be taken with respect to Herat which would have the effect of compelling the prosecution of a specific line of Policy in the countries beyond the Indus, until the new Ministers shall have had time to take the subject into their deliberate consideration, and to communicate to us their opinions thereupon.

"We therefore direct that, unless you should have already taken measures in pursuance of our Instructions of the 4th of June 1841--which commit the honour of your Government to the prosecution of the line of Policy which we thereby ordered you to adopt, or which could not be arrested without prejudice to the Public interests, or danger to the troops employed--you will consider those Instructions to be suspended.